The Top 75 Conductors Series #13: Sir Adrian Boult

With recommended recordings

The Top 75 Conductors Series

#13: Sir Adrian Boult

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It is hard to believe that we are up to #13 in our series on the top 75 conductors and are still in Bs in the alphabet. Apparently, the conducting gods were generous to those with last names beginning with B! The final B on the list is the legendary English conductor Sir Adrian Boult.

Sir Adrian Boult

Adrian Cedric Boult was born on April 8th, 1889, in Chester, England and died on February 22nd, 1983, in London. Boult was from a wealthy merchant family, and from a young age Boult attended concerts in Liverpool with his family. When Boult moved to the Westminster School in London, in his free time he would attend concerts conducted by the likes of Richard Strauss, Sir Henry Wood, Arthur Nikisch, and Claude Debussy. Boult also attended concerts in Oxford while he was there and even met Sir Edward Elgar through a family friend. While in undergraduate studies at Oxford, Boult switched majors from History to Music and in the meantime met Ralph Vaughan Williams, who would become a lifelong friend.